


Assignment: Earth:  Baby Boomer Blues

by Cheree_Cargill



Series: Glimpses of a Life [58]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 12:14:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14790335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheree_Cargill/pseuds/Cheree_Cargill
Summary: After traveling back in time to the Earth year 1968, Spock ponders what lies ahead for the human race.





	Assignment: Earth:  Baby Boomer Blues

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: The Star Trek characters are the property of Paramount Studios, Inc. The story contents are the creation and property of Cheree Cargill and is copyright (c) 2018 by Cheree Cargill. This story is Rated PG.

_Stardate: 4812.4, First Officer Spock recording._

 

It was cold in New York as the Captain and I walked down the street attempting to pinpoint the building that our instruments indicated was the location of Gary Seven. Our chronometers said that today was April 4, 1968, but there was still a trace of winter in the air that howled between the skyscrapers and I was grateful for the coat and woolen cap I wore. I knew that later today, in a city further south, Memphis, Tennessee, an important civil rights leader would be assassinated, but that was not our concern. It would change the course of history in the United States, but our objective was to stop Mr. Seven from tampering with the launch of an suborbital nuclear platform, due to blast off within an hour from now. The Captain was uncertain how to proceed, but the mysterious human would have to prove that he was there to help Earth and not destroy it.

When with Mr. Scott's help we located the office being used by Mr. Seven, we were confronted by the young woman acting as his secretary, whose name we learned was Roberta Lincoln. I surmised that she was no more than 18 or 19, but imbued with a surprising amount of what was called "street smarts" and spunk. There was an innocence from her young age, but also the ability to assess and accept new situations -- meeting an alien from the future, for instance, as she did when we came face to face in our struggle in the office and she blurted out "What are _you_?!" By the end of our mission, she no longer seemed astounded by the fact of my existence.

She was what would later be called a Baby Boomer, in reference to a generation which had been born after World War II when their fathers returned from the conflict with the goals in mind of returning to normal life and starting families. This generation came of age in the 1960's and were in rebellion almost from the beginning.

After studying this period of time, I could understand why. As Ms. Lincoln put it, they worried whether they would be around by the time they were 30. The world had barely survived the brink of a devastating nuclear war just five years before and worldwide events seemed to present a breakdown in civilization that would send humanity back to the Dark Ages. This was a monumental and turbulent year in Earth history. We were here, having traveled back in time, to do further research on 1968. It seemed hard to believe that mankind had not destroyed itself during this year.

In January, North Korean patrol boats had captured the USS _Pueblo_ , a US Navy intelligence gathering vessel and its 83 man crew on charges of violating the communist country's twelve-mile territorial limit. This crisis would dog the US foreign policy team for 11 months, with the crew of the _Pueblo_ finally gaining freedom on December 22.

The Vietnam War was raging and on January 31st, the North Vietnamese would launch the Tet Offensive with the US embassy in Saigon being invaded and held for a number of hours. The next day, news photographers would capture a South Vietnamese general publicly executing a captured Viet Cong prisoner, which would become a rallying point for anti-war protesters. Approximately a month and a half later, American soldiers would perpetrate the My Lai massacre, killing more than 500 Vietnamese civilians from infants to the elderly. Protests around the world would pit students against armed troops of their own countries, resulting in many of the students being shot to death.

In the United States, President Johnson would announce that he was leaving office at the end of his term, resulting in a rush of political leaders announcing their candidacies for President. On June 5th, Robert Kennedy, brother of the slain President John Kennedy, was gunned down before a large crowd of supporters in San Francisco. This would leave the election wide open for Richard Nixon to be elected in November.

That summer the Democratic Party Convention in Chicago would erupt in violence as radicals and anti-war protesters were set upon by Chicago police, beating some marchers unconscious and sending dozens to the hospital, shocking the nation as they watched on their televisions. It would further fuel the anti-war movement to get out of Vietnam.

In August, Soviet troops would invade Czechoslovakia with over 200,000 troops, putting an end to the "Prague Spring," and beginning a period of enforced and oppressive "normalization."

Despite all this unrest, the United States would launch Apollo 7 for an eleven day journey which would orbit the Earth 163 times, and, in December, Apollo 8 would travel to the moon and swing around it before returning to Earth after a successful mission. It was the first time a manned craft would leave this planet and come home. Within a year, Apollo 11 would land Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin on the surface of the moon.

In other parts of the world, babies were being born with experimental genetic mutations that were designed to make them almost super men. One of them was Khan Noonien Singh who would lead a coup in India and Pakistan and, after a bloody struggle, would be put into cryonic suspension and shot into space aboard the _Botany Bay_. We would encounter him 300 years from this current date.

The worldwide Terror Wars of the 21st Century would lead Earth into a dark, barbarous period, but would result in Zephran Cochran's launch of the first warp drive ship 95 years from this very day – April 4, 2063 – and First Contact with the Vulcans.

I completely disagreed with Starfleet's order that we use the solar slingshot effect to travel back in time. There are too many chances of disrupting history. All it takes is one act to do so, as we experienced with the Guardian of Forever. Our accidental discovery of the means to time travel can be too easily exploited. Any warp-capable ship with sufficient power to do so could disrupt the timeline to their benefit. I think of the Klingons or Romulans or even a benevolent power. This is an area of research best left alone.

I will be glad when we finally return to our own time frame. If it _is_ our timeframe. How can we be sure that something we have done, however inadvertently, has not changed things? Chaos Theory says that a butterfly stirring its wings in China can ultimately cause a hurricane in the Atlantic. I am uncertain that this is valid, but how will the Baby Boomers of this generation affect the future? Will they become industrial leaders bent on conservation or exploitation of natural resources? Will they become political leaders and Presidents? Will they become terrorists determined to destroy people not of their race or religious beliefs? It is a fearful prospect. I will feel better once we are home and I can relax in meditation and not dwell on things I cannot control.

But I will keep Ms. Lincoln in my thoughts and hope she is an instrument of creation and not of destruction, as she and Mr. Seven do their work on Earth.

THE END

 


End file.
